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The reports from Syria indicate that Washington still intends to provide extensive military support, as well as other types of assistance, to the terrorist groups that yet remain in the southern part of that country, apparently wanting to use them to pursue the same goal the US was after seven years ago: to slow down the process of reaching a political settlement and to overthrow the legitimate government in that Arab country, bringing in a puppet regime of its own.

Detachments of terrorist gangs from the Islamic State pseudo-caliphate make up one armed component within the machinery of this “war by proxy” that the United States is actively utilizing this time around. Those detachments are the successors to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, as well as the armed faction known as Jabhat al-Nusra (the “Front of Support”), whose combined membership has at times totaled as many as several tens of thousands of militants who subsequently carved out a niche for themselves in the former de-escalation zones of Eastern Ghouta and Homs.

To encourage armed opposition to the regime of the legitimately elected president of the Syrian Arab Republic, Bashar al-Assad, the Americans have made extensive use of the “terrorist enclave” that was created by US troops near the settlement of al-Tanf in southern Syria, where American instructors train terrorist units from the factions listed above and then send them deeper into Syrian territory. The US is also actively utilizing the local airspace, where the Pentagon has arbitrarily, i.e., without approval from Damascus, proclaimed a “no-fly zone” for a 50 km. radius.

In total, US armed forces and special ops have established 19 military bases and garrisons on Syrian territory, violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of this country that is a full member of the United Nations, in addition to their 22 military bases in neighboring countries, set up in order to ensure that those strongholds get an uninterrupted supply of weapons and ammunition, fuels and lubricants, food, etc.

It is particularly noteworthy that Washington’s direct military, technical, logistical, and administrative support for hardcore terrorist gangs in the southwestern de-escalation zone, which is located on Syrian soil, is clearly in conflict with the agreement that was reached in regard to the status and modus operandi of that zone. It is worth pointing out that representatives from Jordan and the US took part in drafting that agreement, which was updated in July of last year. What’s more, as guarantor nations, those two countries committed themselves not only to ensuring that the armed anti-Syrian groups abide by the ceasefire, but also to continuing the fight against the terrorists who are still located inside the southwestern de-escalation zone.

It is very unfortunate that for the past two years Israel has joined the US to violate this agreement, by continually supplying the armed anti-Syrian terrorist gangs that have been operating in this zone, providing them with everything they need to conduct combat operations on Syria’s tortured soil, as well as even now continuing to ensure that “humanitarian convoys” of some sort regularly make it into the regions controlled by the Syrian Free Army, which is also waging an unending war against the Syrian people.

It is quite obvious that even back when the southwestern de-escalation zone was first being established, the United States was planning to make use of the armed gangs they had cultivated on Syrian territory, to be used as an additional force for launching attacks on Damascus, which sits fewer than 100 kilometers from the borders of this cooling-off zone.

Free Syrian Army fighters

According data from different sources, about 55% of the territory of what used to be the southwestern de-escalation zone has already fallen under the control of the Islamic State pseudo-caliphate and Jabhat al-Nusra, and their armed detachments of more than 5,000 militants are desperately trying to hold on to it.

While crudely meddling in Syria’s internal affairs, Washington has even had the gall to claim that the United States would not allow the Syrian military to enter the de-escalation zone in order to establish order and stability there and to protect the civilian population that has already suffered for so many years at the hands of the members of the “terrorist international.”

Apparently Washington wants to hold on to any means of coercive leverage it can use to influence the military and political environment in Syria, with the help of armed terrorist brigades that have been outlawed not only in the Syrian Arab Republic, but in many other countries as well. In other words, the current American administration, led by Donald Trump is flagrantly and knowingly breaking the promises he himself made during his 2016 election campaign not to interfere in the internal affairs of other states and not to overthrow foreign leaders.

In order to protect the civilian population in southwestern Syria from terrorist gangs, Damascus has every right to use all means necessary, in keeping with the UN Charter.

Reposts are welcomed with the reference to ORIENTAL REVIEW.

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Ph.D., Expert Council member of the Russian Senate' Foreign Relations Committee, Professor of the Academy of Military Science, former high-ranking diplomat, leading expert on disarmament and strategic stability issues.